


Third Time's the Charm

by Severa



Series: Self-Indulgent [9]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bromance, Ficlet, Gen, Is my sister my mom?, Oneshot, Third Time's the Charm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 11:39:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14331663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severa/pseuds/Severa
Summary: Loki discovers that if you're dead, you can't die.





	Third Time's the Charm

**Author's Note:**

> _"What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."_

“Why are you here?”

Loki stood calm at the foot of a heaping pile of rubble, surrounded by four old friends – enemies, he thought wearily, but they mustn’t think him a threat – and stared up at the Mad Titan.

Thor dangled in his grip, head clasped in Thanos’ hand, and Proxima Midnight leveled her spear at his own neck. Loki slowly raised his hands up in surrender.

Thanos smiled.

“You know well enough.”

“No barren moon, princling,” crooned Proxima. “We found you.”

The situation they found themselves in was bleak. Thanos’ Sanctuary had descended upon their stolen cargo ship, grander and deadlier than anything that Sakaar could’ve ever offered, and gutted it of all life. Thor and Loki stood in the wasteland that remained, bodies of their people strewn about them, women and children mixed in with the bodies of soldiers Sakaarian and Asgardian alike. They alone were the known survivors. Thor’s forwardness in battle had snared him in a trap; Loki’s caution had offered them little reprieve from these harbingers of doom.

It seemed that his toll had finally come due.

Standing in carnage and blood, surrounded by the children of Thanos and every memory that came after his fast fall from the Bifrost, Loki was more acutely aware of Ebony Maw than anything or anyone else in the hold. That creeping creature stood behind him, always quiet, scheming and weighing his words before he spoke them. They had been made acquaintances many times before – he had no desire to hear his voice again. 

“Aye, I do,” Loki admitted, turning one of his raised hands out before him. “And you’ll have it. As promised.”

“Loki!”

But he ignored his brother’s cries, pretended not to see him twisting in Thanos’ grip.

The Tesseract, blue and gleaming and forever beautiful, appeared in his palm, summoned from the air before him. It misted green for a heartbeat’s second before blue light washed over them all, deceptively soft and serene.

Thor’s one good eye was wide in horror, but familiar anger swept through his expression before shock could take hold. Loki smiled.

“Loki, _no_!”

What would have happened if he had left it to the Vault, he wondered. If it had burned in Sutur’s fire? Perhaps they’d simply be dead when Thanos discovered his boon lost, or perhaps this never would’ve happened at all. The only thing Loki would have had to fear was the wrath of the Avengers alone. But now he didn't have that good fortune; he had death, painted purple and tall, looming over him as Hela had once cast her shadow over Asgard.

“Enough out of you." Thanos clearly moved to tighten his grip, to crush Thor in his hands and be done with it all.

The Tesseract disappeared and Cull Obsidian roared, throttling Loki by the neck and wringing him up off the ground.

“Trickery!”

But Thanos paused, Thor still breathed, and that was enough. It only took a single look from the Titan for Cull to plant him back on his feet. Loki rubbed his neck, unashamed. Proxima pressed her spear ever closer, threatening its poison blade.

“For his life,” he managed. “As promised.”

There was silence, until - 

“Father does not bargain with petty lives.” Ebony’s voice sent a chill down his spine. Loki straightened at his shoulders – if he could possibly do that further – and closed his eyes, his expression hidden with Maw standing at his back. He remembered those hands, cold and long, clawing him. Words like daggers cutting through his skull, breeding sickness and fear, spawning madness where there'd once been cleverness... A hole in the sky, a spear in his hands, spite in his heart and death in his wake.  _I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose._ “We bargain with realms, King-to-be, or do you forget our arrangement?”

He took a deep breath to steady himself.

“Midgard was a means to an end that no longer exists. Asgard is no more. All that is left of it is its blood, its King...” His voice remained calm and even, but anxiety crept up his throat. He looked to Thor to remind himself of the present; he thought of Heimdall and Valkyrie stealing away in an escape pod, escaping the clutches of this Titan with cargo of upmost importance. “My brother is that. You’ll be searching the darkness of the void for the Tesseract if he dies, that I swear.”

“Puny threats from a tiny God,” Corvus Glaive dismissed the thought, frowning. It was as if his expression could not be swayed to anything brighter than displeasure. “Let's be done with this.”

“Perhaps,” Thanos spoke again, silencing his audience, ignoring the struggled noises of Thor trying to free himself. “But what am I if not my word? The Tesseract for Asgard, this ragdoll warrior.” He shook Thor, as if to prove a point. “As you like it. But nothing more.”

Loki allowed the Tesseract’s light to bleed back into their world, appearing in his palm again. Ebony Maw’s long, cold fingers plucked it from his grasp and he brushed by him, as silent as a specter as he approached his Father. Loki’s blood ran cold.

“Death shall be pleased,” Proxima declared, words dancing like a taunt down her spear.

Loki blinked, daring a glance to her in confusion. Thor stilled in his peripherals and then he found himself sharing a look with his brother, both of them thinking the exact same thing.

How absurd. How wonderfully, regrettably ridiculous.

Bubbling, dangerous laughter stewed in him and before he could control it, they were laughing.

Cull roared and hit him across the chest with one mighty claw. It threw him off his feet, skidding into a pile of fallen Asgardians that cushioned his fall, sliding in a sickening fashion beneath his weight.

“Death is _dead_ ,” Thor managed, choking on his laughter as Thanos’ grip tightened around his crown.

Hela. Awesome, terrifying, glorious Hela was no more. She burned in Surtur’s fires, in Ragnarok. Her grave was the kingdom she wished to rule.

“Is she?” wondered the Mad Titan. There was no anger in his voice, only amusement, and that alone gave Loki pause.

"Saw the big flaming bastard burn her up myself." Thor smacked at the hand holding him. "Watched the whole damn place crumble about her." His laughter waned, but he smiled. "Sorry."

Thanos' smiled crawled beneath Loki's skin. His amusement was gone.

“Your half-brained, second-rate excuse for a Goddess is not what I seek.”

A chill set over him. What was greater than Hela? She who could only die in the fires of the world’s end? She was death, she’d said it herself. Odin Allfather had _feared_ her. If there was something greater than she... Loki shuddered at the thought.

Thanos threw Thor on the ground to take the Tesseract, holding it aloft in his giant hand. In his grip its walls began to fracture, splitting apart, promising the stone within. On his other arm, the Infinity Gauntlet seemed to gleam brighter.

“Asgard lives. Now give our dear Loki my thanks, daughter.”

There was a flash of light as the Tesseract crumbled, imploding in waves of raw power that sent Thor skidding across the ground like a skipping rock. He yelled out in warning as he tumbled and Loki lurched blindly to the side, attempting to escape whatever _gift_ Thanos saw fit to give him. It proved to be too little, too late.

The agonizing crack of metal shattering his ribcage struck through his whole body. Cold ran through him and white-hot pain chased after it, scorching veins of blood and magic alike with the promise of death. Absurdly, he leaned into the sensation, sliding sickeningly down the shaft until his hands found purchase on it, holding still and preventing further impalement. But there was nowhere else to go. It speared him through and pinned him with his fallen comrades, heaped in piles behind his back. Staring up at Proxima Midnight, at her black-toothed smile and grey skin, he found himself thinking of Kurse.

_“See you in Hel, monster.”_

He opened his mouth. Only blood poured out.

* * *

When Loki crumpled and turned blue, when the raised lines of Jotun markings struck through the pale glamour of Asgardian skin, Thor knew that his brother and well and truly died.

Everything he knew – everything he loved – had been stolen from him in a matter of days. Tears fell in anger, in grief, and he grappled with the thought of Mjolnir, longing for the weight of revenge in his hand and the song of lightning in the sky.

White light crackled in his eyes. Lightning snapped across his chest. Thunder rumbled in his voice.

A portal opened up beneath him and he fell into the dark screaming his brother's name.

* * *

Loki tried to open his eyes.

_Dead, dead, dead..._

He'd been dead before. Not properly dead, of course - just dead enough to go to the other side, just lucky enough to find his way back. If that luck remained, he'd have the opportunity to die again. But to die again, he'd have to fight his way back to life, and to fight he had to see, had to open his eyes...

Hela was the first sight to greet him, crouched over his corpse like a vulture.

He scrambled, startled, but her blackened fingertips found his jaw and rendered him still. She was a horror despite their surroundings, despite his own body, blue and lifeless, speared through the chest, and her presence was enough to command his silence. Her knee in his chest was enough to keep him still. She was still burning around the edges, embers gleaming brightly in her dark hair, patches of smoking decay worn like a skin rash that would never stop itching. Her clothing, green and black, clung to her in tatters that had melted into her skin.

“Hello, little Prince,” she crooned.

He swallowed. Properly dead, then, if his skin was this blue. This cold.

Of course Valhalla didn't call him. _Of course…_

“Did you hear what he called me?”

Loki blinked in surprise. Where was her speech? Her hateful revenge? Hela’s grip eased and she leaned back on one foot, still crouched over him, staring down her nose at him like they’d never quarreled a day in their lives. It was positively... docile, if not a little intimidating.

"Pardon me?”

She released his jaw to cup him across the ear and, with a surprising amount of clarity, he was reminded of Frigga’s scoldings.

“Are you deaf?”

“I’m dead. Or am I not? Third time’s the charm, so I’m told.”

Hela, Goddess of Death, Goddess of Despair and War and Glory, scoffed as she stood and stepped away, offering her hand down to him in peace.

Well, he certainly didn't have anything else to lose. He took her hand with little hesitation, allowing himself to be helped up.

“Father raised a pair of fools for sons.” She tugged him to his feet, sighing as she brushed herself off. The embers smoked beneath her hands. “You two have the bright idea to burn the realm eternal just to get rid of me, without considering any consequences, and then that purple buffoon has the gall to call me a second-rate Goddess? Half-brained? A pitiful excuse for Death?”

“He didn’t say exactly that.”

“He implied it well enough.”

Carefully, Loki tugged his armor into place. He felt right, if not a little empty.

“You were trying to kill us all, you know. It was you or Surtur.”

“I expected more from someone so familiar with fratricide. You took the fight _so_ personally. Why not just accept your defeat in glory?” It was if she thought that that had been their folly all along. She pushed her hair over her shoulder, not looking at him. “Why do you think Father took you off that barren rock, boy? Did he ever strike you as a man of generosity?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, her expression barely veiling her disappointment.

“Perhaps I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Huffing in disapproval, she shook her head and stepped forward, toward his the departing party led by Thanos. Her footsteps left behind impressions ringed with small flames. “Until then, what say you to putting that purple bastard in his place? This realm is rather boring.”

“We’re dead, Hela. Unless you’ve forgotten.”

She laughed, a sound that was so pleasantly sharpened that it filled Loki with discomfort.

“The dead can’t die, Loki. Not really.” When she turned to him, smiling, reality suddenly came to a screeching halt and he realized what had been in front of him this entire time. “When will you understand that?”

**Author's Note:**

> More self-indulgent ficlet. Let me know what you think!


End file.
